Whether your company adheres to a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) model, a LinkedIn marketing strategy can certainly make a difference in terms of growth.
The first thing you need to know about LinkedIn marketing is that it is different from other kinds of social media marketing you may be used to. If your company is already active on networks such as Facebook and Twitter, you will need to approach LinkedIn in a different way than those channels.
Understanding LinkedIn
Whereas Facebook users will let you get away with social media marketing that sometimes pushes your products, services or brand, LinkedIn users tend to be less than forgiving when they encounter these sales oriented actions.
LinkedIn marketing should be conducted in a way that stays faithful to business networking. In other words, all your efforts should be of a professional nature. Even if your company is strictly B2C, you must think about how your advertising efforts can appeal to the business mindset of your prospective customers.
Getting Noticed and Staying in Touch
Once you start spending time on LinkedIn, you will notice that making connections is not as easy as on other social networks such as Facebook. For this reason, you should treat all new followers as leads, which means that your company’s LinkedIn profile should be active and engaging. Take a look at your followers and think about content that they will be interested in. If your business develops billing software, for example, ask one of your programmers to write a blog post about the business research they perform before they start coding, etc.
Launch Ad Campaigns
Unlike on other social networks, LinkedIn advertising campaigns tend to be highly effective due to the level of targeting possible. With LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, you can choose between pay-per-click or pay-per-impression campaigns to target groups, companies, schools or individuals. If you own a pizza shop, make a list of the businesses in your delivery route and create a mouth-watering Sponsored Update that targets employees of companies where you can deliver to at lunch time.
Be a Good Neighbor
The worst social media marketing strategy you can attempt on LinkedIn is to treat your company’s presence as an echo chamber. Sadly, this is a mistake that many business owners make; they post one update after another about what they are doing and what they want to sell. Since networking is the number one purpose companies and individuals join LinkedIn, you should actively pursue opportunities to make connections and share valuable thought leadership.
If you are a senior partner of a law firm that specializes in estate planning, join a group of your peers and discuss the merits of using trusts to protect real estate assets. If you see a brilliant explanation, be sure to express your opinion on the matter; by doing so, your law firm could earn future referrals. Likewise, if you need a paralegal to join your team, be sure to post the job on LinkedIn; if you hire from the network, be sure to announce it to your followers and so on.
So when you approach your LinkedIn marketing strategy remember to share valuable information, make genuine connections and keep your company page up to date and engaging. Happy connecting!
